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Monday, 30 December 2013

"The Reckless Engineer is definitively a book for serious 'Whodunnit' fans! Author Jac Wright has created gripping characters for his new novel and each one could be a suspect...until your turn the next page and someone else comes into the play! . . . A fast paced plot line has you guessing all the way as one character after the other appears to be next in line as a suspect in the crime, from Jack's wealthy and cheating wife to her billionaire father. . .
Set against the beautiful landscape of coastal England all the way to Aberdeen Scotland, readers will have a hard time to put this novel down!"

"In the classic scenario of good guy turned sleuth out of necessity, Jeremy is held in my highest esteem. He is an appealing character who is smart and honest but still underhanded enough to do whatever it takes to get the job done. Much attention is given by the author to details along with an in depth look at each character which really piques the reader's interest. . ."

"The Reckless Engineer is very intricately plotted story which is expertly executed. I got engrossed in the story hook, line and sinker. :)
There are so many questions the reader wants answers to and he is intrigued more and more as the story progresses. It's a battle of power between people who are influential, powerful and have no qualms in venturing into the grey area. They can and will do anything to get something they want, done.
The characterization is admirable and the characters vivid and each one as different as the day from the night. . ."

"How could I have missed it? How could I be so blind? The signs were all there. I should have known. I should have been able to figure it out. Kudos to you Mr. Wright, you slipped one past me. . .

Jeremy is awesome! He sneaks, he spies, he climbs walls, and he makes awesome machinery. I might like Jack from a distance. While I feel bad for him and he seems like a good person, he really brought all this trouble on himself by cheating in the first place. . .

Jac Wright's novel that revolves around highly qualified electrical engineers works beautifully. The novel moved at a nice pace and didn’t feel weighed down with technical jargon. The more I read, the more I became interested in what these engineers do professionally, in addition to whom they were killing. . ."

"Now put all these characters together and you have the makings of a great murder mystery. I think a mystery is good when you are sure of who the culprit is, but when it comes to the end you find that you are completely blown away when you find out who really did the murder and why. So all that said, I think this book will appeal to the crime thriller/mystery lover out there. . ."

"It is easy for me to see that I will be a Jac Wright fan for life. . . Jac Wright’s poetic background comes through in this book. This book truly weaves the story around you until you can’t stop until you have all the answers! . . ."

"The premise of the book is very interesting and the mystery is solid. Jeremy who is an engineer by trade, attempts to find the murderer before Jack is convicted and sent to prison. Jeremy is also trying to keep his engineering firm solvent, reconcile with his ex-wife, be loyal to Jack's ex-wife and his current wife, and keep a good working relationship with the McAllens, who have hired him to run the company in Jack's absence. . ."

"The second I have read by this author, his short The Closet was a clever and unique read and I appreciated the author’s style and voice that was developed in his character. In The Reckless Engineer, the author uses similar characterization tools to bring the main characters of Jack and Jeremy to light . . ."Gaele Hi of "I am, Indeed" reads and reviews The Reckless Engineer.

"So things have been going really hectic at home and I only managed to pick the book up 2 days ago kinda worried that I wouldn’t be able to finish it.

Alas – that was not a problem. It was such a catchy book that once I picked it up I really couldn’t put it down. For two days straight I was up until 3 am trying to find out what was happening with who and who did what to whom. The story line was so fascinating that I was talking it through with friends at work. . ."

The story of “The Reckless Engineer” unfolds with the cold-blooded murder of Michelle a secretary who became too big for her boots and is a power center in her own right at the UK office of Marine, a large electronics company. You are treated to the cutting edge technology that the highly qualified electronics engineers work on. But under all the geeky skin they wear, you realize all of them are mere mortals with same flaws and passions that you and I have. . .

A very good thriller with multiple layers that appear to be not connected only to turn out to be the links of a jigsaw puzzle. The book opens with the married playboy engineer landing in jail for murder of his pregnant girlfriend. Slowly every body comes in as suspect as almost every body had a motive and opportunity to kill the murdered woman.

I think Jac Wright has built a great drama and suspense in layers in the book and you have a page turner. The story takes you to the oil boom town of Aberdeen near North Sea where one of the prime suspects, a henchman of billionaire McAllen clan patriarch, is running his seedy activities from his cozy den, while the police in UK are searching for him. . .

CTR: I like Jeremy. He is a much better guy then Jack yet he does not have women falling over him, career is in almost shambles till Jack comes into the picture and is obsessing over his ex, for reasons known only to him. Whyyee?

A: I think that some of the women who fall all over Jack fall for his big money. Jeremy is not as rich and has not married into family money. Also Jeremy is much better looking and much more confident in himself, and he does not have Jack’s need to go after women for reassurance and for his own self confidence. So he is more selective with women and lets them know he is not interested by his behavior and body language. Women do fall for him, as you know half way through the story when Annie comes into the picture. Maggie though strings him along, never really letting him go. She is a doctor, and Jeremy values her intellect. Jeremy has been in that relationship for a long time. Long time relationships don’t just stop cold turkey a lot of the time. The phrase that sums up that relationship is “a slow pull on the plaster off the raw wound.”

The Jeremy, Maggie, and Annie triangle is in a slow build-up here and will come to the foreground and play out in the next book.

The recession hit the economy of London and the South of England hard and companies were struggling because clients were not buying high tech items that were considered luxuries. I wanted Jeremy and his story to convey the difficulties of a small engineering firm struggling through the recession and coming out of it well like some of small firms have done by the skin of their teeth while the others have had to file for insolvency and shut down. So there is some socio-economic commentary in the book there.

CTR: *That must be what I liked about him.. His resilience and confidence despite inner turmoil..*

"This is a crime thriller that keeps you hooked till the very end. Its been in front of your eyes all the time, but you cannot pinpoint the killer. The language is gripping, and the characters are very real. Jac Wright has come with a best seller, and possession of it is an absolute must!"

"The scenes are described vividly making it easy for us to recreate the image in our mind and follow the story as it progresses.The characters are well thought out and give us a sense of reality. They are all described in shades of grey and no one person is perfect. I really liked the way each character had a definite reason to be in the story. There were no unnecessary deviations from the plot either. . ."

"This was a cleverly written mystery. I will admit that I never guessed who-done-it, right up to the reveal. The author did a wonderful job of dropping enough red herrings and false trails that I simply didn't see the subtle clues for what they were until it was all over. It was an entertaining story, made more interesting by all the bold and vivid characters throughout the story. . ."

Strangely enough my favourites are two of the supporting characters. The first one is Magnus Laird, a bumbling solicitor. He is definitely a lovable Dickensian character who I created specially as a tribute to Charles Dickens whose writing inspired me early on in life. The second character is Otter, the gay half-black actor working in the London West End. I develop him further as Jeremy’s sidekick in the series from the second book, “Buy, Sell, Murder.”

"The quality of storyline was amazing and the characters were expectedly detailed and not too complex. His style of writing is quite compelling if you're into psychological crime and murder stories. Moreover the story had a style of quick witted characters and characters that I have come to love."

OMN: What is the best advice — and harshest criticism — that you've received as an author?

JW: I think both have come from my editor, Debbie Gilbert. She is so nice and we have so much rapport that she disguises any criticism as advice also with a smiley face at the end.

There is one thing in her edits that really stuck in my mind. She crossed out the last sentence of one chapter and noted: "You never end a chapter with the protagonist going to sleep. It is a cue to the reader that he or she can do the same also. :)"

"I did enjoy this book and the flow of it. With all the twists and turns this book has, you will not stop reading until you get all the answers and the truth behind the real killer of the engineer's mistress. . ."

The best experience has been reader feedback to my short story, The Closet, and feedback now beginning to come to me on The Reckless Engineer. There is nothing like hearing from the readers. One of my readers wrote to me after reading The Closet, saying that she was dyslexic and sometimes found it hard to follow full-length novels; that she loved The Closet and wanted me to continue writing really good short fiction like that. It almost brought tears to my eyes that one of my stories could have helped her.

JV: I see that the main character of The Reckless Engineer, Jeremy Reid, has an educational background similar to your own. How much of the character is modeled after you?

Jac Wright: Great question. A lot of Jeremy’s character is modeled after me and my good friend, but even more is modeled after what I should like to be. Jeremy lives the ideal life I should like to live and I live it through him.

Q. As an engineer myself, I find your background in both engineering and literature fascinating. How much of your own experiences were you able to include in The Reckless Engineer?

A lot of my own experience in the engineering field factors into The Reckless Engineer. There hasn’t been a hero who is an engineer since Barney in the Mission Impossible series; and Q in James Bond is supporting cast. There are so many medical dramas on TV. Where are the engineering dramas? I wanted young adults to see how enjoyable, glamorous, and cool engineering is and create a hero that will attract youngsters to its various fields such as electronics, civil engineering, petroleum engineering, chemical engineering, computer science etc. As you might have noticed my series lead, Jeremy, has an educational background similar to me.

I have worked in most of the fields I write about in the book–electronics, computer science, petroleum engineering, bio-informatics etc. It was easy, for example, to use my knowledge gained from bio-engineering contracts in drug design to find out the process for synthesizing the poison.

As you know engineers are problem solvers. They are very bright, resourceful, creative, inquisitive, observant, and highly skilled. You put a problem before us and we WILL come up with a solution that will surprise everybody. These are character traits that are ideally suited to create a brilliant amateur detective.

I was a student of drama for over a decade and hence I like dramatic scene setting. I just love the dramatic scene in chapter 15 of The Reckless Engineer in the Sitting Room of the McAllen Mansion. The billionaire McAllens are the family of Jack Connor’s wife and the scene is set in his house while he is still in custody. The scene ends with the unexpected news of Jack Connor’s fate. I can see the scene in my mind like a stage production. Everybody has secrets and troubles they are hiding and all is not what it seems. . .

I have loved English literature since my mother enrolled me in weekend Speech & Drama classes when I was 3 years old. My mother had this rack in the attic full of books like The Pickwick Papers, The Tale of Two Cities, Lorna Doone, The Animal Farm etc. stacked on it along with piles of Readers’ Digests. She used to read to me from them even as a toddler when I was too young to read; and soon I was reading them myself. That sparked my interest as a reader and a writer very early. . .

Of course Jeremy has a lot of meaning for me at a deeper level, but I just love Otter. He is going to be developed even more in the next book as Jeremy’s “sidekick.” Otter will eventually be a favourite. In contrast, I also like Harry Stavers, the barrister and quintessentially English gentleman. Together, the 3 of them make an interesting trio. . .

Ha, ha. Not me, no. However, I do have Jeremy and I live that life of an investigator though him.
As for Jeremy, well you have his engineering firm, Radio Silicon, sharing a wing with Barratt, Stavers & Associates solicitors’ firm. And his best friend, Harry Stavers, is a criminal defence attorney. So there are lots of murders around. You also know that Jeremy’s personality is such that he is an “adrenaline junkie” and he can’t help himself stumbling into all sorts of trouble and adventures. However, he will always stay an engineer. He won’t become a professional private eye.
As you know engineers are problem solvers. You put some kind of problem before us and it will bug us until we come up with a solution to solve it. Engineers are super smart and very observant. As an electronics and electrical engineer Jeremy can create all the gadgets he wants to spy on shady characters. So we have the makings of a good amateur sleuth in him. . .

Being an engineer familiar with the technology I know that in the near future we will be carrying with us a reading device that is not much different from an opaque plastic folder. It will be flexible like the covers of a folder. We shall be opening such a device and reading most of our books and newspapers on it.
Print books, however, will still remain and sell because there is something timeless and appealing to human instincts about a book that cannot be reproduced on a digital device. . .

Q: Do you have a favourite out of writing poetry, writing novels, and being an engineer?

I like writing fiction, both long and short fiction, best. Having said that, I would feel as if I were missing something if I were not doing my engineering work also. Getting the seed idea for a poem is hard; it is much harder than writing fiction. . .

"The first chapter started off well, the 2nd chapter I had a hard time with and keeping people straight, and then it flowed well again after that. I will say I was NOT expecting the ending! I kept thought about who could have killed Michelle, but the answer wasn’t one I expected. . .
We give four paws!"

"I seriously hate cheaters, period. I've never had that kind of thing happen to me, so don't jump to the conclusion that I despise infidelity because I've been cheated on. Definitely not. I just don't see a point in being with someone if you're going to cheat. It's despicable and a major waste of time for everyone involved. Save yourself the trouble and just breakup with the person if you could even think of cheating on them as a serious option. It'll be much easier on everyone. That being said, the whole plot of this book pretty much revolves around the fact that Jack is a dirty scumbag. This doesn't mean that the book isn't good though! It's definitely interesting and I wanted to keep reading to see what happened and ultimately I wanted to know who it was that did everyone a favor by getting rid of a villainous chick. Without this infidelity, there'd be no book. . .
Yeah, its a pretty good book. It kept me reading on, which can't be said for all books. I did care about a couple of characters, not most of them, but a good enough few (particularly Sally and Jeremy). I would recommend this book, only to adults and other mature audiences (naturally).
The Reckless Engineer at the end of the day is a good thrill and crime mystery that I would recommend if you're looking for a good puzzle to solve. I give it 3 out of 5."

Seventeen year old Samantha reads and reviews The Reckless Engineer on her YA blog "The Real World According to Sam".ps: I made a mistake in offering this book to Samantha without checking her age because it is really for an adult audience, but I am so grateful for her delightful and frank view on it. We are both saying the same thing, except I am doing it through a story--showing the negatives effects of an affair on family, friends, and coworkers. I kill off one cheater and reprimand the other (Jack) right through, starting with the title; I plague them with trouble and punish them.

Q: What are your current projects?

I have two stories – The Bank Job (Summerset Tales #2) and Buy, Sell, Murder(The Reckless Engineer #2) – half written. I have also started the fifth, In Plain Sight, with just the plot and the main characters designed and only the first chapter written. I have a hunch that In Plain Sight is going to be my favourite. I should like to finish all 3 in 2014.

When it comes to the initial idea for a story I don’t know where it comes from. It comes to me from somewhere deep in my subconscious mind in a moment of inspiration, like a segment of a movie or a disjointed dream. Something gets me started and then the idea nags at me until I put it down on paper.

Something got me started and now I love it; I can’t seem to stop. I might even give it all up for writing even though I hope I don’t have to.

Q: Skittle or M&Ms?

M&Ms. That’s the original one, right? I don’t particularly like copies, of anything.

"The Reckless Engineer is a good whodunit with a colorful cast of characters. Jac Wright has done a good job of bringing the characters to life and making them all realistically flawed. There were many characters and many suspects, all described in detail. My favorite character was the McAllen family lawyer, Magnus Laird. Right in the middle of this murder drama was this strange man who had to make me laugh. . ."

"I guess I would describe this book as a modern combination of Dickens and maybe Poirot. Actually I want to say Miss Marple because Jeremy, the protagonist, is something like an amateur detective, a bit like Marple, except he's not in his 70s... and he doesn't carry knitting. Hmmm, maybe just think Agatha Christie-type crime, detective novel with Dickensian descriptions... Anyway. It was so, so much better than I was expecting it to be, and I might even be a new convert to detective, suspense-type novels. . .

Like in a Sherlock Holmes novel the answers had gone unnoticed while subtly being there all along, and so when the killer was revealed I was left open-mouthed and completely shocked. This made me so happy since it happens so rarely. So, just, yay!

There were plenty of characters I didn't like and if Michelle hadn't been murdered at the outset I might have had to kill her myself (I'm not quite sure how that would work, but just go with it..). I saw Jack, the accused, as a dirty cheater for most of the book, . . .

. . . And if Jeremy, the protagonist, is supposed to look something like Scott Eastwood, and Harry Stavers, like Richard Armitage, as the author has suggested, then I can't really understand why you wouldn't want to describe them. Seriously, look at his beautiful face. . ."

Q: Also it easy to notice that there is big spectra of different characters from different layers of society. I’m sure it adds to the story. Which one is your favorite? Many of the characters are from the educated middle class. I include the Scottish aristocratic upper class family, the McAllens – Jack Connor's wife, Caitlin McAllen, his father-in-law, Douglas McAllen, and his brother-in-law, Ronnie. I then have the lower working class characters in Aberdeen, Scotland. I have included European immigrant workers and tourists from Australia. The book has a cross-section of today's British society. . .

Q: What is your process for developing characters? Do you people watch and base characters off of what you see? Or are your characters complete figments of your imagination?

It's a mash-up of a lot of things. I used to be an amateur photographer in the good old days when photographs were developed in dark rooms, and I specialized in photo-journalism–that is photography featuring human interaction and "stories" about people. I have studied body-language and I have an eye trained to capture interesting "stories" between people as an amateur photojournalist. So I love grabbing a seat in a café or a mall and watching the world go by. Sometimes I revert to old habits and take pictures. You can effectively capture people's looks and mannerisms this way and sometimes whole stories come through in a photograph.

For personalities, however, I look to psychology, being a deeply entrenched disciple of Virginia Woolf's Bloomsbury school of writing. I got interested in Freudian and Jungian psychology during (again) Stanford's liberal arts education program. I give them a psychology and some life experiences. I then put them in a particular set of circumstances within the plot, keep them true to their psychology, and let them drive the story forward. Sometimes they struggle against their psychology and circumstances due to the demands from those around them and their own conscience.

I have used people in real life as models for certain aspects, but it is all mashed up. A character might have the personalities of one person, looks of several others, and purely fictitious circumstances. Therefore even where real life aspects get into them these are used purely fictitiously. . .

I am re-reading ‘Wuthering Heights’ because it is one of the all-time greatest love stories. I read it in my early 20s. I am very good at writing suspense and mystery, but I need to enhance my skills in writing great romances and there is no better way to do that than reading 9and studying) some great romances. I am also reading ‘The Luminaries’, this year’s Mann Booker prize winner.

Q. All of the books you’ve read, which book has impacted you the most?

For my full-length suspense series I have to pick Patricia Highsmith’s ‘The Talented Mr. Ripley’ series. I love her brand of psychological thrillers arising out of everyday life. I really like her deep character building, perfect POV handling, literary writing, and world building that brings beautiful settings to life for us.

Q. I'm intrigued by Jack, since I created something of an anti-hero for one of my own novels. From reading your blurb, it seems Jack has it all - yet clearly 'all' is not enough, so it sounds as if he deserves what happens to him. Does he have any redeeming features?

I too, am fascinated by anti-heroes. Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr Ripley is my favourite suspense series. For The Reckless Engineer title I took the word “Reckless” from “reckless abandon” with which Jack acts. Jack does it because he thinks he can get away with it. He is of a somewhat smaller made build and is a bit of a geek, even though he is brilliant and very confident at his work. His psychology is that he tries to overcompensate for it by going after glamorous and vivacious women.

Redeeming qualities? He is a bloody brilliant engineer and he was a great friend to Jeremy at his time of need. I think the two friendships that Jeremy has with Jack and Harry respectively are very interesting. They are very different, but very close and touching in their own ways.

However the hero in the books is not Jack; it is Jeremy, my series lead.

JW:The first works I wrote were poetry and then I progressed to short stories. I first started writing long-form fiction about 2008 with the intent of being published. I believe one needs a certain amount of life experience to write with impact and I felt I was ready about this time.

People are lying, a mystery man with a skull tattoo on his hand and a scorpion around his neck keeps floating in and out; A K.C. has some connection with Stone’s current wife. Her brother doesn’t like Reid. A nice mix of characters kept moving nicely by author Jac Wright in this thriller that kept me going and he even drops a twist in here and there.
Quite enjoyed this one. . .

Cozy Mysteries are distinguishable by a likeable everyday hero, a tightly woven plot that engages the mind, and well cast characters formed with depth.

The character solving the crime is often an amateur sleuth who becomes involved because of personal reasons. This person uncovers the criminal through an emotional or intellectual examination of the scene, the suspects, and the clues. The main character may tell the story in the first person or in the third person. Many cozies invite the reader to solve the crime first and clues are given throughout the pages.

The victim in a cozy should not be someone who is terribly missed. Cozies are, for the most part, feel good stories. Murder is wrong, but someone had to die for the plot to get underway. The criminal in a cozy is usually motivated by human traits of greed, jealously, or revenge. You won't find many serial or thrill killers in cozies. The criminal may commit a second crime during the story but again any violence takes place between the lines and not on the page.

Supporting characters in a cozy can be eccentric, exasperating, or entertaining. They don't have to be likeable but none are so outrageously evil that they might cause the reader to stop reading. These people include the suspects (of whom the criminal is actually one), innocent bystanders, and those who may help the main character.

While Agatha Christie popularized the small English village as a setting, cozies can take place anywhere. Typically, a cozy has a small setting so that the pool of suspects is limited and relationships can be developed. Since the main character does not usually have access to forensic laboratories, the solution of the crime depends on talking to characters who all know each other.

The cozy is often a puzzle where all the pieces are available for assembly, even if the one which points at the killer needs to be flipped or examined more closely. The precipitating crime either occurs before the story starts or soon after it begins. The main character becomes involved (happily or not) and sets out to solve the injustice. As the sleuth gathers clues and gossip, there may be a threat which increases tension. There may also be fear that a second crime might occur, and it might. The cozy is not a roller coaster ride as much as it is an examination of human frailty. Instead of unexpected plot twists, cozies are known for surprising revelations. In the end, the main character, and justice, prevail.

While graphic sex is out, romance may play a part in the cozy. If the romance starts to be as strong as the mystery, the story crosses over into another sub-genre of mystery: romantic suspense.